Hi John & Leila, I recall German Wikipedia made a bid for unesco heritage a while ago (before Wikidata in any case). Maybe they have some lessons learned? Here in the Netherlands the oldest museum (Teylers) made a bid for unesco heritage and stated their mission (of 1784) was the same as Wikipedia’s. That bid got rejected but we never did a lessons-learned on it. Jane Sent from my iPhone > On Nov 27, 2023, at 10:59 PM, Leila Zia <lzia(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > > Hi John, > > Thank you for your continued work to elevate the importance of Wikipedia in > different circles. > > Some early thoughts and questions below: > >> On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 3:51 AM john cummings <mrjohncummings(a)gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> Dear all >> >> I'd really appreciate some advice on an application for Wikipedia to be >> considered for a very prestigious international heritage recognition. >> Myself and a few others previously applied and got to the final stages of >> the process, however we were rejected on the following points. If anyone >> has any suggestions or papers which might help answer these issues I'd >> really appreciate it. I have a number of arguments prepared but I would >> really appreciate any thoughts, feel free to include them in this email >> list, or just email me them separately. The first point is the one I feel >> needs the most rebuttal. >> >> 1. Although it is acknowledged Wikipedia is a phenomenal idea, it was >> not clear how it could be defined as ‘heritage’ at this stage of its >> evolution. >> > > What is the technical definition of "heritage" in this particular context? > (That may help us come up with relevant talking points.) > > >> 2. Wikipedia's dynamic nature and the unpredictability of the nature of >> the content generated. >> > > Looking at this question, question 1, 4, 5, and 6: I wonder if the place > you're speaking to requires some level of stability or a static nature in > the project/theme that they want to call heritage. If something has to be > relatively static to be called a heritage, I wonder if you can consider a > different framing altogether: instead of pitching Wikipedia as a heritage, > you may want to consider pitching the model of global governance of > knowledge Wikipedia has introduced and operates based on as a heritage. > (Basically: the formula is the heritage, not the content itself.) If you > make this switch, then you have concrete elements and some potential claims > to make: > * Wikipedia has revolutionized the way knowledge gets curated and created > in many parts of the world. (You can talk about knowledge by a few to 100s > of thousands of editors contributing to knowledge.) > Wikipedia is not naive and while it welcomes everyone to share in the sum > of all knowledge, the project has thought-through content policies and > mechanisms to enable scalable knowledge curation/creation and maintenance: > * Wikipedia:Verifiability > * Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View > * Wikipedia:Consensus > * Transparency (through revision history) > * Talk pages > ... > > Happy to think through this with you more if you have follow-ups. (note: > I'm slow in responding to emails. If this is something that has a deadline > in the near future and you want to follow-up on something that I mentioned > above immediately: feel free to schedule one of my public office hours. [1] > otherwise here is great.) > > Best, > Leila > > > [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours#Schedule > > > -- > Leila Zia > Head of Research > Wikimedia Foundation > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org